Abd al-Rahman III

Abd al-Rahman III (891-961) inherited a collapsing emirate in 912, spent twenty years restoring it by force, and in 929 declared himself caliph. His fifty-year reign made Cordoba the strongest state in western Europe and built the palace-city of Madinat al-Zahra.

Madinat al-Zahra was the palatine city built from 936 CE by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Rahman III west of Córdoba as the seat of the Caliphate of Córdoba. Sacked within a century, it lay buried until excavations began in 1911 and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018.